


The Cruelty of Gods

by StudioRat



Series: Winds of Twilight [4]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Blood and Injury, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Engagement, Implied/Referenced Torture, Other, Past Abortion, Past Character Death, Past Violence, Pining, Poisoning, Pregnancy, References to Canon, Revenge, Wrongful Imprisonment, court intrigue, references to other parts of the series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StudioRat/pseuds/StudioRat
Summary: His name is Ganondorf.He was the leader of a band of thieves who invaded Hyrule in the hopes of establishing dominion over the Sacred Realm. He was known as a demon thief, an evil-magic wielder renowned for his ruthlessness... But in all of his fury and might, he was blind to any danger, and thus was he exposed, subdued, and brought to justice.By some divine prank, he, too, had been blessed with the chosen power of the gods.
Relationships: Ganondorf/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Series: Winds of Twilight [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/442912
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	The Cruelty of Gods

**Author's Note:**

> An explicit answer to the question I've been asked more than once since this series began:  
> how the canonical betrayal which was the catalyst for **Twilight Princess** and therefore and **Shade of My Enemy** could still happen, given the friendship (and romance) of Crown Princess Zelda Sophia Sheik Karsooda Saivatha Hyrule and King Ganondorf Rajenaya Dinauru Chalut Dragmire in the era of **Ocarina of Time**.
> 
> It is not a happy story.
> 
> You have been warned.

In darkness lays the foreign king, honey on his tongue.

In his arms, a golden blade, blood of Hylia, asleep at last. Their dreams are silenced by his hand, not for the first time, the tenth, nor ten-hundredth. He will not hesitate to weave it again, if the heir to the Red Lion throne should breathe but a syllable to ask.

In darkness he counts the motes of magic on windows and walls, numbering his sins.

He is King.

He is the flower of dawn, he is the thorn of twilight, he is the lord of storms and the hope of his people. He is a warrior, he is a father, he is a witch, he is a thief, he is a lover, he is a demon, he is a friend, he is a heretic, he is a brother, he is a matricide.

He is a traitor.

He is thrice bound by blood and oath and spirit to the interests of the gods-blessed Hylian throne for which boundless power he lusts, for whose heir he has longed from the first tale he ever read of the divine maiden, wrought in ink and gold as a holy icon, ineffable and pure, blessed of gods and spirits, for whose sorrow the heavens weep and for whose joy the wind is said to dance.

The wind is life to their green country, death to the golden lands.

They are blessed.

He is cursed.

They lay in his arms at peace, and he is alone. 

Counting sins.

Their new seedling is barely even rooted.

If the scorpion feeds purgative poison to his beloved golden blade again, the enchantment he wove on their tongue will see it, and his oaths will not be enough to stay his hand this time. 

The trap-crystal is too good for her.

The foreign king dreams of holding her still-beating heart in his hand.

He dreams of destroying the last barrier to the power he has spent his whole life in search of, the one power left in any world which will be enough to free him from his chains.

In a rosy dawn, the young king dresses carefully, honey on his tongue.

Gold for his lips, kohl for his eyes.

Fine white mistlinen against his skin, their favorite. He smooths imagined wrinkles, and it is their golden hands adoring him, their scent on the gentle morning wind, still thick from another secret night. Another morning, he might linger in it, his nose buried in soiled pillows, his sinful hands soothing the ache of his secret heart.

He touches ancient topaz and jade instead. He will wear the crown of ages for them tonight, and when they tell him they should burn the fragment of a childish letter within it, he will laugh, and he will refuse. A wicked oath renounced is a precious treasure, priceless, second only to a divine relic on his scales.

> _I shall never marry! How could you wish such a thing possible? If you were to become a man, it would be terrible! To be Queen is no honor! It is a death sentence, it is slavery, it is to lose every scrap of what little I have to be made a broodmare, a mindless drooling vessel for the seed of a king until I can bear no more, that the next Zelda may be born when I die! How can you betray me? You were my friend - and now I hate you for wishing it even in idleness!_

It stings as an arrow in his flesh, even now.

Yet it is a precious pain.

Their golden hand lays on the shaft, their blessed lips kiss the wound.

 _At last_ , he says to his reflection, his hand careful with the brush and golden paint. _Tonight will be perfect._

It must be perfect.

A second fragment hides with the first, the delicate folds of enchanted onionskin paper challenging the secret clasp where he hides his hope.

> _If power is terrifying, wisdom is petrifying. To know every possible consequence of every moment, three, six, dozens of moves across the board and still the endgame is uncertain, the correct way an infinite labyrinthine tangle - it is a burden I should not wish on my worst enemy._
> 
> _I still hate the bloody sword for its sins - and I draw it for its virtue._
> 
> _You have ever been a faithful friend and steadfast star - without you I should have been lost a hundred times over, long ago. Even when I abused you, you have always been the best and truest of friends. I could never bind my life and path to anyone less deserving than you._
> 
> _I do not want the alliance._
> 
> _I want you._

Silk and leather, steel and gold. He tucks a delicate writing brush in its ebony case, and slips it into his pocket. Tradition says the sun should give the moon her blade, but the greatest victory of the bandit king was won by ink and paper. He bites the inside of his cheek to suppress the urge to fidget as his servant builds the elaborate coiffure which best suits the heavy War Crown he will at last have hope of setting aside.

A single lock out of place would be unacceptable.

Tonight must be perfect.

Dancing, whirling, a glittering mess. The highborn of seven countries gather under painted stars. The treaty lays on the altar under a crystal dome and seven layers of magic. They will sign at midnight of the longest night of the year. They will bring the world into a new dawn.

The Crown Princess is late.

He does not pace.

He does not ask questions.

He knows the shape of their spirit, their blazing light, their golden resolve.

They share his wish for perfection in all things.

He knows the moment their golden slipper touches the stair.

He lays a wager with himself: a white rose for Gentleness? Black for Vigilance? Green to honor his Endurance over the long years of this secret campaign? Orange to honor the people of Spirit among whom the world will soon know they belong? A rare blue blossom for the Movement of the stars whose delights a child promised to give a princess who already owned everything else? Bright and cheerful yellow-gold for the Skill of his dance and theirs? Crimson for the fiery passion of their Flight into this moment? The rich purple of mourning and of Knowledge, for a truth at last acknowledged?

He waits at the foot of the curving stair, content to admire the descending beauty, the benevolent moon come at last to awaken his heart and open the blossom of his hungry spirit. The shadows of his youth are behind him. All but two enemies lay vanquished, and one traitor is already approaching his end, drinking more deeply every year of aconite and belladonna in the teas so lovingly brought to his ailing hand by his adoring daughter.

He smiles to lose the wager, as he so often does when he allows himself to dream of their heart.

Nestled in their golden ringlets, they wear a grand pink rose with crimson-kissed petals, fragrant and bountiful. They too have discovered the seedling nurtured in passion.

The last enemy will die tonight.

He will sign the treaty in the blood of a scorpion whom he is at last, with that one secret blushing message, free to hunt.

He takes the jeweled chalice, and he drinks of their radiant smile. He bows over their white silk glove as a court gallant might, a favorite joke.

They lean against his knee to rebuke him.

Anyone might glance toward the stair and see.

The bandit king bows to the Princess of his destiny and takes honey onto his tongue.

It is perfect.

Lute and komuz, horn and tambor, viol and drum fill the vast hall. Pair after pair, moon-pale Hylians and round-eared foreigners are woven into the dance. The flower blooms over elegant marbles. Faster and faster, twisting and bowing, leaping and sliding. 

He smiles at strangers.

They do not dance well, but they dance.

The arts of the golden people will flourish again.

He is the lord of storms, he brings the rain of growth to the holy earth. He is the hope of their prosperity, he is the downfall of their enemies.

For ten minutes, for forty, for ninety, for more than he has had in one night since he wept alone in the burning sands at nine years old, he can almost forget he is the promised vessel of ancient Calamity.

 _K’cyrtia_ , someone cries.

One after another, strangers’ voices demand to see it. The sword flower, the great crowning art of the golden people, by whose grace the long-sought peace will finally be woven.

He is a benevolent and powerful king, and his beloved smiles.

They summon through light the golden tuck he gave them in the winter they learned whose hand they’d refused three years before. A sword which once belonged to a parasite and toady of the fratricide usurper king. A sword he liberated within a week of learning _why_ they fled to his country alone, starving and bloody.

He summons his own twin blades, forged for the express purpose of his greatest sin, and engraved with their names. It is the only part of them which he allows to remain.

The music stills, and the drum awakens.

Steel bright, gold sublime.

They dance.

Eight rounds.

Two more find the courage to join.

Eight, and four.

Two by two the flower blossoms, glorious and radiant and perfect as nothing has ever been before, summoning the light out of darkness with the beauty of their ancient dance.

He does not see the first cut.

It is a mistake.

A slip of an inexpert hand.

It does not matter - it does not even hurt.

Nothing hurts.

The world is made of light and color and movement.

He is effervescent, he is dizzy, he is light as a single apricot blossom on the dawn wind, filled and overflowing with a most peculiar and ineffable feeling he has never known before. 

They have accepted his heart at last and his spirit is blooming in their pale hands.

The second and third slip of strangers’ blades are nothing, they cannot touch him. 

He is a ray of the sun dancing on steel.

The Princess shrieks.

He pivots in blurry grace.

He sees nothing in the world but them.

They stagger, bloodied.

He abandons the flower, carving through the press.

They touch their bloody shoulder, white silk wicking blood fast, faster, too fast.

He roars skyfire, burning a path to their side.

Blood.

Everywhere.

Red shards, life and hope shattering with wet finality on patterned marble. 

Step after step, and still more steel rises between them.

They are stumbling.

They say his names.

Their golden voice is tremulous with betrayal and pain.

He kills, and he kills, dancing in a deadly tempest of steel, feeding on the miasma to burn the fumes of wine from his blood and kill _faster_.

Too late he learns it is not just wine.

Shadow magic flares - light magic cracks through air and steel. His ward is broken for three critical beats. He stumbles with a shock arrow in his thigh.

Shadow magic blooms a second time as poisoned steel burns his cheek.

They are gone.

The scorpion has them, has the precious seedling.

His wards snap back into place, far too late.

He rises in fury, and with every power of death and darkness at his command he steps through shadow in pursuit of his enemy.

It is a trap.

The scorpion is alone in the endarkened mists.

The Princess is nowhere.

The sheikah blade is forged in holy waters to disable demonic magic.

The stolen windblade of a Hylian Princess trained by golden warriors carves his spirit from the shadows and drops him into the mortal world in the spiral stair of the Crown Princess’ tower.

He stumbles.

A jeweled golden chalice stands forgotten in the window.

He does not need to touch it - the mark of his spirit lingers upon it.

The viscous stain marring the side confirms the poison thickening the dregs of the wine he willingly drank.

He curses himself for a fool.

The demon thief retreats through shadow to the chalked seal in his own warded suite.

An impossible iron knuckle stands in the middle of the carnage which was once a private dining room for his late escort. None should exist - he destroyed them with his Exalted when they cleansed the Spirit Temple of his mothers’ many sins.

It raises a blasphemous copy of the Champion’s Axe.

He roars skyfire into its chest until it is nothing but ash and char and molten steel slag against the far wall.

He does not mourn the dead. They are beyond his help, their spirits consumed.

He stalks toward the office. There are potions in the desk. Antidotes. Restoratives.

He stumbles.

Papers lay strewn over the rugs. Three of his bookshelves hang open.

Zelda would not need to search for anything. 

They are nearly as familiar with the office in the state rooms as he is. Countless nights they whiled away in conversation and study and argument within its soft golden walls. They know every book he keeps in Hyrule Castle, they know every letter and invoice and ledger in his olivewood desk. They know the false panel and the drafts hidden in it - they have read each and every one, their delighted golden laughter rising in warm amusement over the secret of his elegantly composed correspondence.

They are both betrayed.

He taps his bloody fingers on the desk in an old pattern, known to no one, not even them.

The olivewood yields the precious letter, much creased, sweat-stained from riding in his cuirass as he carried a bloody princess to shelter.

> _Your last letter leaves me in worse temper than it found me, and that is an accomplishment you should do better to regret as the Legions return with too many of my sisters on their shields. What do I care for your unbalanced library or the soft minstrel idiot you smile at during your glittering stupid parties? Your pampered knife-eared ‘musicians’ with their temperamental fifteen-string lutes would lose their tiny little minds to behold the enchantment a savage backwards thief weaves with a three-string komuz._
> 
> _I will countenance no further praise of overblown Hylian ‘art’ until you’ve heard the music of the People for yourself. Leave the insipid winter frippery of Hyrule, and embrace the mystery of solstice with me under the wandering stars. You are right in your boredom with the weak softland customs - follow the cry of your true spirit - come away to the golden lands, and I will show you real challenge. Bring your steel or bring your words, I will meet you at the godsforsaken border and we will see who bows._
> 
> _As your friend, I must warn you: if you study the sword twice as well as you study your calligraphy, you had better to bring your pen._

It is scathing, it is rude, it is ill-matched to the bright intent behind a letter of commonplaces meant to lighten the darkness of war with shared amusements. It is the one invitation out of thousands which they clung to in their lowest moment. It is the letter they held so dear they risked their neck to demand the bandit king give it back.

He is dizzy.

He is cold.

His finery is soaked.

The concentrated restoratives in the desk drawer are gone. There will be red potions in the dressing room. Blue in the bedchamber. It is not far.

He stumbles on the threshold, leaning on the door.

It is not far now.

He draws strength from the letter in his other fist.

They were both betrayed. They did not know the cup was tainted. 

Surely.

They too were struck by the traitors. They were taken somewhere - they need his strength now more than ever. The coup was meant for them both. The scorpion must die.

The strongest potions of all await them in the dower chest he spent years adorning and filling. It is sacrilege to raid it for himself - but he must. There is no other way. Something struck deeper than he thought. The poison isn’t helping either.

He draws strength from the fires of rage and love together.

He leans on the washstand for balance. 

It falls.

Shattered pottery under his hands.

Blood on the tiles under him.

Drips and splatters and handprints and smears.

He cannot get his feet under him.

His boots are slipping.

His limbs are shaking and he cannot master them.

He pours his Will over his tongue to activate every single ward layered on his bedchamber, shadow and light, holy and unholy. Mortal and demonic.

So long as Ganon persists in any world, the wards will remain unless the one true heir of Hylia wills it otherwise.

By will and oath and blood, by the might of the oldest gods, no work of mortal nor magic may break the seal but the Weaver and the Named.

The sheikah scorpion cannot be allowed to reach the dower chest or the priceless trap crystal in it.

He crawls to the chaise lounge which once knew such joy as he could not measure.

It stands steady.

He claws his way up onto the seat, bleeding on black silk velvet. He leans heavily on the rolled arm, struggling to breathe. The room is spinning madly. The tiles are melting.

Maybe they did know about the poison.

Maybe it was never the scorpion poisoning the seedlings at all.

Maybe their tears were all part of the long stalk, by the blessings of Nayru always twelve steps ahead of even the demon king.

He will never know.

He has witnessed death many, many times.

He closes his eyes to the delusions, cursing the truth he finds written in eigengrau and phosphene. He knew he was dead the moment he saw a puppet of his late mothers waiting for him, it is only that his flesh resisted the truth, as so many bodies do. The urge to persist in the face of the impossible is a peculiar perversity of the mortal form. He fumbles to open the ebony case and retrieve the brush for one last letter on the symbolic scrap of onionskin he’d tucked in with it.

He does not need ink.

> _Love is a weapon which cuts its bearer._

He lets the bloody brush fall, collapsing on the chaise.

He is just waiting for the words to dry, and he will whisk it through the spiritroads to the enchanted box on their own desk which he carved with his own hands, and which no one can open but them.

He uses the last of his strength to crush it in his fist when the shadows bloom.

The scorpion must not be allowed to profane it.

Her smile is cold. Her blessed blade is triumphant.

Light flares to interrupt its arc.

Like his.

But it is not his.

He is cold.

He cannot stop shaking.

Light and shadow.

A woman shrieks.

He drags his eyes open, but a wet veil remains over the world, distorting the possibly-human figures above him.

His tongue will not obey him.

 _No, no, no, no this cannot be happening,_ cries a golden voice.

_Zelda, Zelda -_

Their hands burn on his brow. _Gan, oh Gan I turned and you were gone - goddess bright what happened? What did you do to him Impa? Hold on Gan, stay with me, I demand it._

_Zelda, Zelda, I am here - I am coming -_

_I did nothing but protect you, as I have from the day you were born_ , she snarls. _For the sake of your happiness alone I gave him a drought for pain that mazes his tongue now.. I am certain he is behind the attack - those blades were desert-forged, Princess._

_Liar, traitor, scorpion - I will tear your throat with my bare hands -_

_This is more than pain -_

_Do not listen to his lies - he is a demon, a traitor, a snake. He planted those assassins and took wounds of his own design to trick the world into believing -_

_No! You lie,_ snarls that beloved golden voice. _There is too much blood for artifice - I cannot heal him - it’s not working - I’m trying Gan, hold on, hold on for me. Go get a fucking healer Impa, and I will consider showing you mercy._

_Princess-_

_Now-!_ Zelda howls.

Darkness blooms.

Sharp stinging pain. Again, their hand marking his cheek.

He could laugh - such a tiny common thing, borne a million times before, but on the precipice of death, a tiny slap hurts more than anything.

_You stubborn son of a - look at me! Look at me - don’t you dare close your eyes again. Give me your hand. Good, both, give me - what do you have?_

_Zelda, Zelda - she lied - you must not trust her -_

He tries to pull himself closer to them. He needs to whisper the truth for their ears alone. The word is burning his throat. He needs to get it out. He has never shaped it, not once, but it belongs to them, and he cannot go to the ancestors with it still buried in his own chest. He has failed them in every other way - he must seize victory in this.

_What is this supposed to mean? How dare you give me a riddle when you’re dying you backwards-_

_I could only bring one with me Princess -_

_You expect me to work a miracle on a human? With no tools whatever?_

_What is that paper? A conspirator’s-_

_It is nothing of your business,_ snaps Zelda. _How dare you lay hands on my harp?_

Strange hands on his brow, his hands, his throat.

_For your happiness alone, though it gives me pain to say it, I serve you to death and beyond, Princess. You must play it. Don’t argue with me - if you want him to live long enough to persuade anyone he should be cleared of this treason, you will play it._

They hesitate.

_Don’t listen to her - she is lying - can you not see the putrescence on the wind she spews? She is the traitor - take my blade - take it - she can’t evade a strike from you._

_The songs to command Will can keep him alive?_

_You demand the impossible Lady Impa - the fever has already taken him - he’s lost too much blood. Sacred water can only delay the inevitable - unless you have a willing donor?_

_Zelda - draw the blade - you know it must be done - do not listen to sentiment, but Truth._

_A spirit bound to stay cannot leave, flesh bound to live cannot perish. Neither lasts forever, but you only need long enough for the healers to repair the damage._

The first note is terrible.

_Zelda, don’t - please -_

The third note is even worse.

_Stop - it’s a trap!_

He clings to tangled threads of failing consciousness. He cannot mark one note from the next, only the endless noise of discordant strings and his own babbling pathetic plea for it to stop. The world is shattering in blurry dripping fragments of light warring with dark.

His last clear vision is a pale hand feeding a tiny paper to a candleflame.

He lets the chains hold his weight.

He has little choice.

He does not know how many days it has been since the last time they fed him.

He would rather starve.

With the bowl of gruel comes pain, fists and iron and burning. They fear him, and they fear the blood wards on the walls and floors and chains are not enough to contain his magic. If he is allowed more than an inch or three from the veil of death, they are certain he will escape.

To eat, to live, he must kiss the veil.

He laughs.

They call him mad.

They do not know he has already lived this pattern.

They will learn how well the demon king remembers his lessons.


End file.
